Financial help is a means of providing assistance to groups or individuals who are currently unable to meet their financial needs on their own. Most financial help systems cater to specific target groups, such as low-income families and individuals, persons with disabilities or diseases, and students, while some are more general in nature.

Forms of financial help

Financial help takes many forms. Some are simple loans to be paid back after a requisite amount of time. Others are outright grants awarded to groups or individuals. Tax credits, medical benefits, and subsidized childcare services are also forms of financial help. In the United States, the government gives financial help in the form of welfare services. Welfare in the U.S. is overseen by the Department of Social Services.

The financial help process

Some financial help is essentially temporary in that beneficiaries are expected to achieve a state of non-dependency at some point. Low-income individuals, for example, are often given financial help for the purpose of aiding them in their pursuit of better-paying jobs. Once these individuals have achieved a more stable financial situation, they no longer qualify for financial help. Students, also receive financial help only for the period of time that they are in school. Once they have completed their schooling, they should no longer be in need of financial aid. If they took out student loans instead of receiving scholarships, they have to start paying the loans back after school.

But there is also financial aid that does not have to be repaid at all; they do not necessarily work on the premise that the beneficiaries will one day cease to need assistance. Examples include financial aid offered to people with disabilities. These systems of financial help often work to compensate for handicapped persons' employment and wage-earning limitations and to help them cope with the rest of society as much as to aid them financially.